Stop Taking Coaching Quizzes and Start Failing Better

I bombed my first real coaching session so badly that my client asked if I was feeling okay.

There I was, fresh out of my certification program, armed with all the right frameworks and a shiny new credential. I had my intake forms, my behavior change models, and enough nutrition science knowledge to write a small textbook. I was ready.

Except I wasn't.

The client—let's call her Sarah—had been struggling with emotional eating after her divorce. Simple enough, right? I had modules on this stuff. I knew about stress hormones and neural pathways and motivational interviewing techniques.

But when Sarah started crying about how food was the only thing that made her feel better, I panicked. I launched into a lecture about cortisol and serotonin. I pulled out my meal planning templates. I asked her to rate her motivation on a scale of 1-10.

She looked at me like I'd just recited the periodic table.

That's when she asked if I was feeling okay. Because I clearly wasn't listening to a damn thing she was saying.

The Skills Assessment Trap

This brings me to that coaching skills quiz that's been making the rounds. You know the one—14 domains, score yourself from 0-5, find out where you rank as a coach. It's thorough, it's professional, and it's completely missing the point.

Don't get me wrong—the skills they're testing are important. Time management, client assessment, understanding research, creating action plans... yeah, you need all that stuff. But here's what that quiz doesn't tell you:

The biggest barrier to becoming a great coach isn't knowing where your skills are weak. It's being so terrified of admitting you have weak skills that you never actually develop them.

I see coaches all the time who can score themselves perfectly on communication skills but freeze up when a client has a panic attack. They know everything about behavior change theory but have no idea what to do when their evidence-based approach isn't working.

They're so busy trying to be the "perfect" coach that they never learn to be a real one.

The Certification Addiction

Here's a hard truth: The wellness industry has created a generation of coaches who collect certifications like Pokemon cards.

Got your nutrition certification? Better add a psychology credential. Finished your behavior change course? Time to learn about trauma-informed coaching. And hey, maybe throw in some business training while you're at it.

We're drowning in continuing education requirements, skills assessments, and competency frameworks. Meanwhile, the actual skill that matters most—being present with another human being who's struggling—gets relegated to a single line item on a quiz: "How well can you give your clients/patients your full attention?"

Rate yourself 1-5. Sure, that captures it.

What They Don't Teach You in School

You know what they don't prepare you for in coaching programs? The client who shows up drunk to your session. The person who hasn't eaten anything but gas station coffee for three days because they're caring for a dying parent. The teenager whose parents are forcing them to see you but who clearly has an eating disorder that's way outside your scope.

They don't prepare you for the moment when someone trusts you with their deepest shame about their relationship with food, and you realize that all your fancy frameworks feel inadequate in the face of real human suffering.

And they definitely don't prepare you for your own shit getting triggered. Like when a client's stress eating patterns remind you of your own relationship with food, and suddenly you're projecting your issues all over their session.

The Messy Truth About Mastery

Real coaching mastery isn't about scoring 300 points on a skills assessment. It's about developing what I call "failure fluency"—the ability to screw up gracefully and learn from it quickly.

It's about building the kind of presence that makes people feel safe enough to tell you the truth. And that doesn't come from studying motivational interviewing techniques (though they help). It comes from doing your own work, facing your own demons, and getting really comfortable with not having all the answers.

The best coaches I know aren't the ones with the most certifications. They're the ones who can sit with discomfort—their client's and their own. They're curious instead of certain. They ask questions instead of giving advice. And when they mess up (which they do regularly), they own it and move on.

A Different Kind of Assessment

Instead of rating yourself on a perfectly organized list of competencies, try this exercise:

Think about your last five coaching sessions. Not the ones that went great—the ones that felt hard. The awkward ones. The sessions where you left thinking "I have no idea if I helped that person."

Now ask yourself:

• What made those sessions difficult?
• Where did you feel most out of your depth?
• What emotions came up for you?
• How did you handle the discomfort?
• What did you learn?

This is messier than a neat 1-5 scale, but it's also more honest. Because the path to becoming a great coach isn't about perfecting your technique—it's about developing wisdom. And wisdom only comes from experience, which means making mistakes, which means being willing to suck at things before you get good at them.

The Permission to Be Human

Here's what I wish someone had told me before that disastrous session with Sarah: You're not supposed to have it all figured out. The clients who challenge you the most will teach you the most. And the difference between a mediocre coach and a great one isn't that the great one never fails—it's that they fail better.

Sarah, by the way, became one of my best coaching relationships. After I stopped trying to fix her with my textbook knowledge and started actually listening, we made real progress. But that only happened because I was willing to admit that my approach wasn't working and try something different.

The quiz asks if you're ready, willing, and able to help clients change. But here's a better question: Are you ready, willing, and able to change? Because if you're not growing as a person, you're probably not growing as a coach either.

So by all means, take the skills assessment. Identify your weak spots. But don't stop there. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Find ways to practice that scare you a little. Work with mentors who will call you on your bullshit. And for the love of all that's sacred, stop trying to be perfect.

Your clients don't need perfect. They need real. They need someone who's done their own work and can handle whatever comes up without falling apart or trying to fix everything immediately.

They need someone who's learned to fail better.

Start Where You Are

If you're reading this thinking "but I still need more training before I can coach anyone," I get it. Imposter syndrome is real, and it hits coaches hard. But there's a difference between seeking training because you want to serve your clients better, and seeking training because you're afraid to actually start coaching.

The truth is, you're ready before you think you're ready. Not ready to have all the answers—ready to sit with the questions. Ready to hold space for someone else's journey without needing to control the outcome.

So instead of taking another quiz to see how you measure up, maybe just... show up. Imperfectly, authentically, with whatever skills you have right now.

Trust me, your clients will teach you everything that quiz never could.

And when you inevitably bomb a session (because you will), remember that it's not a failure—it's education.